History of Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc. , commonly referred to as Marvel Comics (formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group) is an American publisher of comic books and related media. Marvel, founded by Martin Goodman, started in 1939 as Timely Publications, and by the early 1950s had generally become known as Atlas Comics. Marvel’s modern incarnation dates from 1961, the year that the company launched The Fantastic Four and other superhero titles created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and others.

Marvel is a very successful company and has survived for 75 years so far. Timely’s first publication, Marvel Comic’s #1 (October 1939), included the first appearance of Carl Burgos’ android superhero the Human Torch, with the first appearance of Namor the Sub-Mariner, as well as other features. The issue was a great success, with it and a second printing the following month selling, combined, nearly 900,000 copies. While its contents came from an outside packager, Funnies, Inc. , by the following year Timely had its own staff in place.

The company’s first true editor, Joe Simon, teamed with artist and emerging industry notable Jack Kirby to create one of the first patriotically themed superheroes, Captain America, in Captain America Comics #1(March 1941).

It also proved a major sales hit, with sales of nearly one million copies. After the success with Captain America, Goodman hired Stanley Lieber, his wife’s cousin, as a general office assistant in 1939. Goodman made Leiber, who by then was writing with the alias “Stan Lee,” interim editor of the comic’s line.

... because of whom he was became the superhero Captain America and not another villain. Captain America can be seen as one of the most ... strength, it supports this idea. Alluding to all the Marvel movies establishes more standing, which is a trend in many ... making the social message more believable. Like most superheroes Captain America is the epitome of the heterosexual stereotype after the experiment ...

Lee kept that position for decades, except for three years during his military service in World War II. Lee wrote extensively for Timely, contributing to a number of different titles, such as Spider-Man and Iron Man comics. Goodman’s and Stan Lee’s business strategy involved publishing his various magazines and comic books by a number of corporations all operating out of the same office and with the same staff. One of these shell companies,an inactive company used as a vehicle for various financial maneuvers or kept

dormant for future use in some other capacity, through which Timely Comics was published was named Marvel Comics. All though, some comics’ covers, such as All Surprise Comics #12, were labeled “A Marvel Magazine” many years before Goodman formally adopted the name Marvel in 1961. The post-war American comic market saw superheroes falling out of fashion. With the new name Marvel, Goodman’s comic book line dropped them for the most part and expanded into a wider variety of genres than even Timely had published.

Such varieties were horror, humor, Westerns, funny animal, men’s adventure-drama, giant monster, sports, and war comics, and later adding jungle books, romance titles, espionage, medieval adventure, Bible stories and crime. Goodman began using the globe logo of the Atlas News Company, the newsstand-distribution company he owned on comics cover-dated November 1951 even though another company, Kable News, continued to distribute his comics through the August 1952 issues.

This globe branding united a line put out by the same publisher, staff and freelancers through 59 shell companies, anywhere from Animirth Comics to Zenith Publications. Atlas, rather than innovate, took the typical route of following popular trends in television and movies such as Westerns and war dramas at one point, and drive-in movie monsters another point in time, even other comic books, particularly the EC (Entertaining Comics) horror line. Atlas Comics also published a multitude of children’s and teen humor titles including Dan DeCarlo’s Homer the Happy Ghost and Homer Hooper.

... " (Segura 1999, 1). Hawthorne was thinking ahead when he named Goodman's wife Faith. Faith means the unquestioning belief that does ... minister and another well respected townsperson riding by on horses. Goodman starts wondering if everyone in the village has turned evil ... Veil". The story I will touch on will be "Young Goodman Brown". In this story Hawthorne uses allegory, or religious symbolism ...

With the continuing downfall in the comic market, Atlas unsuccessfully attempted to revive superheroes from late 1953 to mid-1954, with the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner, and Captain America. The first modern comic books under the brand name Marvel Comics were the science-fiction anthology Journey into Mystery #69 and the teen-humor title Patsy Walker #95. Then, after DC Comics’ success in reviving superheroes in the late 1950s and early 1960s Marvel followed suit. The introduction of Marvel’s first superhero team, The Fantastic Four, established the company’s reputation.

The majority of Marvel Comics superhero stories were written by Stan Lee. Lee and Steve Ditko generated the most successful new series in The Amazing Spider-Man. Marvel’s comics had a reputation for focusing on characterization to a greater extent than most superhero comics before them. Take for example, Iron Man. The character’s name was Anthony Stark, but was known as Tony (Admin1).

Tony Stark was an engineer who suffered from a heart injury when he was kidnapped by a group of terrorists. He created a suit of armor that empowered his escape, and helps in protecting the world.

Tony Stark is a very witty character. Tony uses sarcasm throughout many comic books, and all of his movies. In 1968 company founder Martin Goodman revised the constraining distribution arrangement with Independent News. In the full of that year, he sold Marvel Comics and his other publishing businesses to the Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation, which grouped them as the subsidiary Magazine Management Company. Goodman remained as publisher. Then in 1969, Goodman ended his distribution deal with Independent by signing with Curtis Circulation Company.

Goodman retired as publisher in 1972 and installed his son, Chip, as publisher. Shortly thereafter, Lee succeeded him as publisher and also became Marvel’s president for a brief time. During his time as president, he appointed as Editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, who added “Stan Lee Presents” to the opening page of each comic book as a tribute to Stan Lee due to his hard work throughout his years at Marvel. In 1971, the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare approached Marvel Comics editor-in-chief, Stan Lee, to do a comic book story about drug abuse.

... games. Moreover, interest of collectors in comic books was reduced which was not addressed by Marvel. So it was the bad strategies ... Andrew group, both investors realized that after the restructuring of Marvel, market value of shares will drop. Since bonds were ... . While carrying on operations in these lines of business, Marvel ignored the alternative means of entertainment which were trending e ...

Lee agreed and wrote a three-part Spider-Man story portraying drug use as dangerous and unglamorous. However, the industry’s self-censorship board, the Comics Code Authority, refused to approve the story because of the presence of narcotics, deeming the context of the story irrelevant. Lee, with Goodman’s approval, published the story regardless in The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98. But he did so without the Comics Code seal. The market reacted well to the storyline, and the CCA subsequently revised the Code the same year.

A series of new editors-in-chief oversaw the company during another slow time for the industry. Once again, Marvel attempted to diversify and achieved moderate to strong success with titles themed to horror, martial arts, sword-and-sorcery, satire and science fiction. Marvel was able to capitalize on its successful superhero comics of the previous decade by acquiring a new newsstand distributor and greatly expanding its comic’s line. Marvel pulled ahead of rival DC Comics in 1972, in the early 1980’s.

Despite Marvel’s successes in the early 1980s, it lost ground to rival DC in the latter half of the decade as many former Marvel stars defected to the competitor. In 1986, Marvel’s parent, Marvel Entertainment Group, was sold to New World Entertainment, which sold the company within three years sold it to MacAndrews and Forbes, owned by Revlon executive Ronald Perelman. Marvel earned money and recognition during the comic boom in the early 1990’s. One of the reasons for their popularity was the futuristic 2099 line of comics.

In 1991 Marvel began selling Marvel Universe trading cards. They went into such a business to diversify out of the struggling comic book industry. Little did they know, that was another dying industry (Musgrove).

In 1996, Marvel had almost all its titles participate in the “Onslaught Saga”, a crossover that allowed Marvel to re-launch some of its primary characters, such as the Avengers and The Fantastic Four, and outsource them to the studios of two former Marvel artists turned Image Comics founders, Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld.

The re-launched titles were a solid success amidst a generally struggling industry, however Marvel discontinued the experiment after a one-year run and returned the characters to the Marvel Universe properly. In 1997, Toy Biz and MEG merged to end the bankruptcy by forming a new corporation, Marvel Enterprises. This helped stabilize the comics line. With the new millennium, Marvel Comics emerged from bankruptcy and diversified its offerings. In 2001, Marvel withdrew from the Comics Code Authority and established its own Marvel Rating System for comics.

The first title from this era to not have the code was X-Force #119. Marvel also created new imprints, such as MAX and Marvel Adventures. In addition, the company created an alternate universe imprint, Ultimate Marvel that allowed the company to reboot its major titles by revising and updating its characters to introduce to a new generation. This reboot has allowed some of its characters to be turned into successful film franchises, such as the X-Men movie series, and the highest grossing series Spider-Man which is thought of as one of the most important Marvel super hero.

But Graeme Mcmillan writes that “Thor is Marvel’s most important Superhero. ” “In the incarnation that returns as Thor: The Dark World, the hammer-wielding Asgardian lays claim to the role of central hero in what’s now known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Just as Marvel’s The Avengers relied entirely on elements set in motion by the previous year’s Thor movie, so do events in The Dark World set up threads that will be followed through Guardians of the Galaxy and beyond (To explain more would be a spoiler; suffice to say, stick around for the post-credits scenes this time around).

What makes this particularly notable is the fact that, in many ways, Thor is the antithesis of a Marvel super-hero. ” (McMillan) Though Marvel has had its ups and downs, they have proved that they can weather any storm. From it’s beginning with Martin Goodman marvel has remained a strong entity in the comic world. People ask what is next for Marvel, since they have successfully crossed over to the big screen, but that remains to be seen. Marvel is thought of as a strong business, and will be for many years to come.

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